Today begins the official canvass in each county, where they verify the vote tallies of every precinct, reconcile provisional ballots, and add any overseas and military ballots they’ve received. That is required to be completed by 5pm on Tuesday, with numbers transmitted to the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

Following the transmission of the canvass results, there’s a 5-day waiting period to allow for any legal challenges to be filed to the unofficial results. At the end of those five days, or whenever the legal challenges are over, county Boards of Election vote to certify the results. Note that this process is both ministerial (in that they are not standing in judgement of the results) and required by law to be completed by November 28.

Difficult legal challenges could extend past that deadline (there are previous cases where litigation extended into January) but most of the time judges rule prior to the statutory deadline.